Dear People Who Keep Company With God,
In my journey with God I discovered something that was shocking at first; He loved the real me and did not like the mask I wore that kept the real me hidden. The Message Bible brings this out well.
“You can’t keep your true self hidden forever; before long you’ll be exposed. You can’t hide behind a religious mask forever; sooner or later the mask will slip and your true face will be known.” Luke 12:2 MSG
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Don’t look at this like a threat because in reality, it is one of the most wonderful things that can happen to you. In fact, if we do not get rid of our mask we can never experience the abundant life we are promised. Every mask, not just our religious mask, keeps our true self hidden.
I began my journey of being a mask-less person a long time ago after God coaxed me out from behind the walls I had built around my heart with His love. I am still on the journey and I still have issues, but I don’t focus on them. I am trusting God to help me deal with the issues while focusing on who He says I am. When I began to do this I became less and less sin conscious and more and more God conscious. The more I began to see my true self, the more I realized how maddening it is to wear mask.
Masks are relational barriers. I had a hard time with the commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself” because I did not love myself. Before I began this journey you did not want me loving you like I loved myself. Isn’t that the way it is? The way we see ourselves is ultimately the way we see others, and to some degree God. Getting the mask off has not only helped me with myself, but with my relationship with God and people. I love myself in a healthy way and that frees me to truly love others.
Masks deceive everyone but mostly the wearer. We need to be loved, recognized and accepted not only by God, but also by people, otherwise there would be no commandment to love others. If you are wearing a mask people will genuinely love, recognize and accept you, who they think you are, but it is really your mask. Your mask actually hinders you from receiving the love, recognition and acceptance that you need in order to be a healthy person.
For example, if I get my identity from being a pastor it would be the pastor mask that received love, recognition and acceptance, not me. So at the end of the day when you are alone with your thoughts you have this need still crying out in your heart. Your life becomes an unhealthy cycle of seeking love, recognition and acceptance in performance, wrong places, people and things. Eventually you will wind up in a big mess if you continue in this cycle.
Masks hide our true identity and thus lead us into a false destiny. The devil has us convinced we are ugly and do not measure up when in reality, we are made in the image of God. He wants to reveal His beauty in us (2 Cor. 3:18), but the mask hinders it. Becky had a dream about this a few years ago.
“I dreamed I was dreaming (a dream within a dream). I was walking into an old antebellum house. As I walked through the house I noticed the house didn’t have many furnishings and there was a balcony. I walked to a back room where there was a young man crouched down in a corner. He was dressed in white and wearing a mask. I said to him, “I’m here to tell you it’s time to take off your mask.” He then took his mask off, and he was a beautiful young man. My feeling was that he was all cowered down hiding behind a mask and didn’t realize how beautiful he really was.”
Because we are made in the image of God we can identify with God and all that God is and does. In doing so we become like Him and desire to do what He is doing, which is our true identity and destiny.
Many Blessings, BW